Julian Corbett
Sir Julian Stafford Corbett (12 November 1854 at Walcot House, Kennington Road, Lambeth – 21 September 1922 at Manor Farm, Stopham, Pulborough, Sussex[1]) was a prominent British naval historian and geostrategist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose works helped shape the Royal Navy's reforms of that era.
Corbett was a good friend and ally of naval reformer Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher, the First Sea Lord.
The son of a London architect and property developer, Charles Joseph Corbett, who owned among other properties Imber Court at Weston Green, Thames Ditton, where he made the family home, Julian Corbett was educated at Marlborough College (1869–73) and at Trinity College, Cambridge (1873–76), where he took a first class honours degree in law.
In 1896 Corbett accepted John Knox Laughton's request to edit a volume of documents on the Spanish war, 1585–87 which served as the start of his career as a naval historian.
[5] Like his American contemporary, Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan of the U.S. Navy, Corbett saw naval warfare as part of a nation's larger policies.
This stance angered many officers in the Royal Navy, who believed such a view lacked the heroic aspect of Lord Nelson's strategy in the Napoleonic Wars.
Drawing from the influences of Baron de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz, he was instrumental in attempting to apply the existing theories of land warfare for war at sea.
For example, Corbett did not hesitate to take issue with Clausewitz, Jomini, or other continental strategists on the importance of the search for the decisive battle and the principle of concentration.
Corbett defined the two fundamental methods of obtaining control of the lines of communication as the actual physical destruction or capture of enemy warships and merchants, and or a naval blockade.
Corbett's strategic defence advocated such measures as an intense local offensive, the projection of land forces, various types of blockades, and raids on enemy trade routes.
[9] Corbett felt that superior concentration thus not only deterred the weaker opponent from seeking battle but presented him with an opportunity to attack his enemy's exposed national lines of communication.
The first of his two main points was that in wartime conditions on the continent, as opposed to those in the maritime and imperial environment, wars were fought mostly between adjacent states.
[10] In other words, the nature of continental war makes it difficult to limit political aims, because one or both states are able to use all of the means at their disposal to protect the inevitably threatened vital interests.
"[11] Like Clausewitz, Corbett shared a belief in the primacy of politics in war and in devising an appropriate strategy to protect the national interests.
These works were complemented by Eric J. Grove's definitive, annotated edition of Corbett's Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (Classics of Sea Power series, U.S.
In addition, D. M. Schurman and John Hattendorf edited and wrote an introduction to Corbett's previously unpublished official study Maritime Operations in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905 (U.S.
